How to Write an RFQ That Gets Usable Quotes (Not Spam)

Why most RFQs fail

Walk into any procurement team's inbox and you'll find a folder of RFQ responses that are useless — too vague, too generic, or "call us to discuss pricing." The instinct is to blame the sellers. The truth is that most unusable quotes are a direct response to unusable RFQs.

A seller reading your enquiry is trying to answer three questions: can I produce this, should I quote on it, and what do I quote? If your enquiry doesn't give them enough to answer the third question confidently, they default to one of two easy responses: a generic ballpark (which you can't compare to anyone else's), or an invitation to call (which doesn't leave you with a written quote to evaluate).

The fix is front-loading the specificity into the RFQ itself. It takes twenty minutes. It saves hours of downstream clarification and produces quotes you can actually line-item compare.

The eight fields that matter

In priority order:

1. Product specification. What you're buying, one key tolerance, and one dealbreaker. "100% cotton poplin, 120 GSM ± 5, must be OEKO-TEX certified."
2. Quantity. Initial order plus annual expected volume if you have it. Sellers price scale differently than spot orders.
3. Target unit price range. Your best honest estimate. Hiding it produces scatter quotes.
4. Delivery location. City, pin code, whether you need door or warehouse delivery.
5. Delivery deadline. A real date, not "ASAP."
6. Payment terms. "30% advance, 70% against BL" or "Net 30" — whatever your finance team has approved.
7. Certifications required. GSTIN is assumed now. Call out anything category-specific: BIS, FSSAI, CE, RoHS, OEKO-TEX, GOTS, etc.
8. Sample requirements. Whether you need samples before PO, how many, and who pays.

The copy-paste template

Drop this into your RFQ and fill the brackets. Works for most physical-goods categories. For services, replace "certifications" with "references" and "samples" with "SOW check-in cadence."

RFQ anti-patterns to avoid

• "Send best price." This is a trained-response RFQ that produces trained-response quotes. No useful information in, no useful information out.
• "Urgent, quote ASAP." Urgency without a real deadline is ignored by serious sellers and exploited by everyone else.
• Blasting to 20+ sellers. Tells every recipient they are one of a crowd. Serious sellers deprioritise cattle-call RFQs.
• Missing the target price range. Produces scatter quotes you have to renegotiate anyway. Save a round trip.
• Asking for a call instead of a written quote. Phone quotes are unreviewable and unshareable with your finance team. Insist on written.

How to actually send it

The mechanics on a modern B2B platform like SourceRightNow:

1. Search the catalog for the product category and filter by GSTIN-verified suppliers.
2. Further filter by online / responsive sellers (you want the ones whose response-speed signal is high).
3. Open a chat with each of your 3–5 shortlisted sellers and paste the RFQ template. Attach your reference image or drawing if the spec isn't self-contained.
4. Note the timestamp you sent each message. Track response speed — it is one of the strongest predictors of how reliable the supplier will be post-PO.

Evaluating the quotes you get back

A usable quote has five properties:

• Line-item breakdown: unit price, quantity, subtotal, taxes, freight (if applicable), total.
• Explicit delivery date and lead time.
• Payment terms matching or clearly countering the terms you asked for.
• Validity window — how long the quoted price holds. 30 days is typical.
• Certification references where relevant.

If a quote is missing two or more of these, push back in the chat before you move that seller out of the shortlist. Some sellers quote lightly and respond well to a structured follow-up; others are simply not set up to deliver what you need. You'll learn which is which by the second round.

Frequently asked questions